She wasn't going back. She was sick of the way that the public looked at her: "The brains," "The additional member of the Golden Trio," and "The bushy haired, muggleborn Hermione Jean Granger,"
After a year of hiding, fate turns her way and she meets someone she doesn't expect to: Draco Malfoy

Chapter 3: Pinkie Promise

Chapter image by indiepersuasion at the-dark-arts

Dear Hermione,

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

You don't know how humiliating it was for us when you vanished.

'The Golden Trio is down to a duo!' The press went nuts!

You could have at least had the decency to tell us where you went.

Draco Malfoy told us where you were! Dumbledore's Armyis in an uproar!

Look, I hope that we are still friends. Either way, Harry and I are coming to visit. We will be there in a week and don't insult our intelligence more than you already have by trying to run away again.

With annoyance and love,

Ginny

~~~

Anger burned in Hermione's throat. How dare Malfoy send a message to Ginny! Hermione grabbed her wand and stormed out of her room looking for Malfoy's. Soon enough, she saw a room with a plaque labeled: Mr. Draco Malfoy, PE Teacher.

She pounded on the door roughly. With his own sweet time, Malfoy opened it, only to receive a punch in the nose.Hermione let a small smile escape her lips as she heard the un-natural crack that came from Malfoy’s nose. Even though she was still annoyed as hell, she felt some satisfaction knowing that Malfoy was in pain.

"Frick'n hell Granger! What was that for?" He swore several times, clutching his bleeding nose in his hand.

"That was for sending the letter," Hermione spat, adrenaline rushing through her veins. After seeing the result of her punch she spun around on her heels and heading back to her room

"Granger," Malfoy said in his natural taunting voice.

"What?" She spun around.

"Don't you think they deserve a right to know that their best friend who was supposedly dead is still alive?” Malfoy swore, “I think that they deserve to know the truth and no matter how hard you deny it, you know deep down that they needed to know the truth as well." Malfoy snapped; his usual stone cold eyes blazing with anger that Hermione had never seen before. It scared Hermione, she had never seen anyone look that mad and yet sound so calm. She held eye contact with Malfoy, but didn’t say a word.

Malfoy slammed the door in her face and behind the closed door; Hermione could hear Malfoy swearing loudly.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione walked back into her room; not sure whether to be scared that Malfoy looked like he was ready for murder or made at him that he had sent that letter to Ginny.

He has no right to interfere in my personal life! She thought to herself angrily. Swearing several times, Hermione kicked the closet, trying to vent her anger; but it was no avail, it just made her even more angry.

“Hermione are you okay?” She heard the familiar voice of Dorian enter the room; he hand’t bothered knocking because the door was already open.

“Yeah,” She lied, but Dorian saw straight through the lie. He raised one eyebrow at Hermione and she caved, “Some old friends from high school are coming to visit,”

“What and you don’t like them anymore or?” Dorian asked; making Hermione sit down on the bed.

“No, it’s not that, it’s just that, well, we haven’t spoken in almost a whole year,” She admitted, hearing the familiar noise of the kettle.

“Did something go wrong? I mean, shouldn't you be glad to see your friends again?” Dorian said; taking two tea cups out of the overhead cabinets and placing a a teaspoon of coffee in each of them.

“I am glad to see them, I’m just scared,” Hermione stated.

“Scared?” Dorian eoched, handing Hermione a large cup of coffee.

“Yeah, scared, Ginny, my best friend, has every right to be mad at me. I was in my, uh, graduation year, and Ginny was in year 6 when... I left. I couldn’t take anymore and I left, without telling anyone,” She said suddenly feeling nostalgic thinking about her best friends: Harry and Ginny, and all the good times they had together during their years at Hogwarts.

Dorian sensed her mood and sat down next to her; cautiously wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

“Well if they are true friends then they will forgive you that I’m certain of. Hey, how about I help you get ready? You look like you could use the support,” Dorian laughed. Hermione let out a small chuckle. She still felt mad at Malfoy but for some reason whenever she was around Dorian she felt safe and secure.

“That’d be great, thanks Dorian,” Hermione said, giving him a one-armed hug; he hugged her back and put the empty coffee cup on the bedside table.

“Now, anyway I got to go, sorry. I’ll see you around,” Dorian said, waving once and then leaving the room; shutting the door quietly behind him.

The sun had set over the line of green trees by the time Hermione had calmed herself down enough to leave the sanctuary and solace of her room. She arrived at the dinner several minutes late.

“That’s okay Dear, come on sit down next to Jane,” Avalon said; pouring Hermione a glass of red wine and passing it down the table.

“Hey Hermione what went on with you and Draco? He seemed on edge when he walked past my room this afternoon. He kept muttering your name and some other word, I think it was ‘mudblood’ but I’m not sure,” Jane said; picking at her food delicately.

Hermione tensed when she heard the word ‘mudblood’ she hadn’t heard it in a whole year.

“Hermione are you okay? You seem tense?” Jane asked. Jolting herself back into reality she plastered a fake smile on her face.

“Yeah I’m fine, if you’ll all excuse me for a moment,” Hermione said; feeling tears burn in the corners of her eyes. She pushed her chair back; making the awful gritty sound, but she didn’t care, she had to get out of other people’s eyesight. Rushing to her room she collapsed on her bed and fell asleep that night; having the best dream she had in a long time: a world without Draco Lucius Malfoy.

~~~

The week passed without too much of a hassle, she would occasionally see Malfoy walking through the corridors, avoiding everyone with his nose the way it was. Hermione knew he would have happily used magic to fix his broken nose but he couldn’t risk anyone suspecting him of being a wizard; which made Hermione even more satisfied.

He can suffer, just like he deserves Hermione thought to herself bitterly, remembering the fear she felt when he had the death-look in his eyes.

Hermione had punched it so hard that it had broken, and as a result he had to have a painful surgery to get it back to the shape that it was before.

“Todays the day Hermione. You ready?” Dorian sung happily at 7 in the morning; waking Hermione up.

“Now, come on Darling, you don’t want me to pour water on you do you?” Dorian laughed, opening the curtains; letting the sun slowly tread it’s way into the room.

“You wouldn’t.” Hermione said, pulling her head out of the pillow to see Dorian’s face.

“Wanna beat?” He smiled, pulling the sheets of Hermione.

“Now get out of bed and go have a shower, hurry up missy. Your friends are going to be here soon,” Dorian said. With complaints, Hermione got out of bed and dragged herself to the shower.

This is going to be a long day She thought to herself.

~~~~~

"You know, Hermione, as beautiful as you are naturally, you really don't have any idea how to match clothes up, do you?" Hermione shook her head, emerging from the bathroom in a hideous lime green dress with a floral flower on the strap.

"No, at school I was always too focused on academics to worry about how I looked," Hermione admitted shamelessly.

Dorian glanced at his watch. "What time did they say they were coming?"

"London," he said to the cab driver, answering Hermione’s question at the same time and within twenty-five minutes, they were in the centre of London, Dorian with his credit card in hand.

"Dorian, no, I refuse to have you buy anything for me!" Hermione protested.

"Come on, 'Mione. We all know I have the money here. You even left your purse back at St. Peters," Dorian said, smiling at Hermione’s scowl that had just crossed her face.

"Well, you're a bit immature," he said, giving her a swift hug.

"Let's go into this shop." Dorian dragged Hermione into the nearest store and swiftly picked the clothes on the rackand placed them into her hands before pushing her into the change rooms.

The shop was reasonably quiet so Dorian and Hermione could talk to each other.

"How is it you know so much about clothes and fashion Dorian, are you gay?" Hermione asked.

Dorian laughedin response. "No, just Scottish. My whole family is girls. I'm not kidding, my dad died when I was little, leaving me with my mum and my six younger sisters,"

"Six?" Hermione echoed, coming out of the change room in the first dress. In Hermione's opinion it showed too much cleavage. She was more of a conservative girl than a showy one. Dorian thought the same, shaking his head in disapproval when she came out.

"Nope." he said, pushing her back into the change room.

"We had quite a large family and as stuck up as this is going to sound, we were very wealthy. Now, come on we don't have all day Mione,"

Hermione stepped out in denim skinny jeans, and a black plaid shirt, her curly hair bouncing off her shoulders.

"Wow," was all Dorian could say. She didn't look flashy, elegant, or especially sophisticated, but she looked amazing. Hermione blushed slightly at Dorian's comment and went back into the change room to change into her normal clothes again.

~~~

"What if they don't come?" Hermione fretted, pacing by her window nervously, waiting to see her old friends. She wasn't sure whether to be nervous, excited, happy or sad.

"They will come," Dorian soothed, a small smiled dancing on his lips as he watched Hermione pace around the room.

"What if they are mad at me?" she said.

"After all this time?"

Hermione was about to make another complaint when she saw them...Neville, Luna, Harry and Ginny. She let out a squeal of delight and ran down the stairs, almost falling over her own feet.

Her hand was an inch away from the doorknob when she stopped. What if they didn't want to talk to her?

Hermione shook her head. She had been a Gryffindor for a reason.Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. Outside stood two couples; both hand in hand: Luna and Neville and Harry and Ginny. Hermione saw an engagement ring on Luna's finger and Ginny had her wedding ring on.

"Hi," Hermione said feebly, raising her hand and waving. No one said anything. Luna slowly walked up the steps and wrapped her arms slowly around Hermione; pulling her into a hug.

"Hi," Luna said back.

Harry welcomed her with a huge hug. Hermione inhaled deeply, she had missed the hugs deeply throughout the year she had been gone.

"I've missed you, Mione," he whispered into her ear, kissing her fondly on the cheek.

"I've missed you too, Harry. Congratulations on marrying Ginny, how long has it been?" Hermione asked. Harry opened his mouth to speak but Ginny beat her Husband to it.

"Six months in two weeks," she said stiffly, not looking Hermione in the eye. Hermione hesitantly took a step towards Ginny and reached for her hand but Ginny pulled it away.

"Ginny," she said. Behind her, she heard Dorian introduce himself to everyone. Ginny had tears welling up in her eyes—whether that was good or bad, Hermione couldn't tell.

"Forgive me?" Hermione asked. A large smile broke out on Ginny's lips and she flung her arms around her best friend.

"Forgiven," Ginny replied. "Pinkie swear." She stuck out her pinkie and Hermione wrapped hers around Ginny's with a happy smile on her face. They stared into each others eyes; the browns eyes clashing. Ginny’s eyes softened as she melted under her best friends gaze.

“Woah, Hermione it’s okay. Did you really think I came all this way just to get mad at you?” When Hermione nodded, Ginny laughed and said, “You’re hopeless,”

“So are you going to introduce me to your friend?” Ginny asked when they broke apart.

"Ginny, this is Dorian Austen. Dorian, this is Ginny Potter," Hermione introduced before leading them to the dining hall in the school. The dinner went by without any troubles, the dancing afterwards was fun and for some reason, Hermione couldn't keep her eyes off Dorian.

Music played softly in the background as the couples talked; Neville and Luna were off in their own little universe, Harry and Ginny were secretly playing footsie’s under the table and Dorian and Hermione were happily laughing with the love-struck couple.

“So Hermione, living with anyone? Or still flying solo?” Harry asked, taking a sip of his red wine.

“Flying solo,” Hermione laughed, “I’m living in a penthouse in London, I had 2 part time jobs, one as a waitress in ‘Starbucks’ and the other working in a small bookstore,” Ginny and Harry both rolled their eyes when Hermione mentioned she worked in a bookstore.

“How did we know that our Hermione was going to end up working in a bookstore?” Harry teased, Hermione laughed along.